Barack Obama Rightly Warns Of Divisive Politics

Tod Beeton is a MyDD frontpager who has consistently shown the capacity to look at the presidential primaries from different perspectives. I am not of the opinion that he has some hidden bias or is conspiring to actively support a candidate of choice. With that said, he recently did a FP post entitled, Breaking: Obama Warns Of Divisive Politics which offered a critical analysis of Barack Obama's recent Manchester, New Hampshire Labor Day speech. In this post Tod Beeton concluded that Barack Obama was attacking Hillary Clinton and that such tactics in the past have yielded rising poll numbers for Senator Clinton. Tod Beeton went on to surmise that this was a failing strategy for the Obama campaign and offered the appearance, according to Mr. Beeton, that Obama was reacting to Senator Clinton's lead to drive the terms of the debate. I find Mr. Beeton's analysis, while insightful, to be wrong and a bit misleading and thus I wanted to counter those points he made in his post through my own following assessment.

Mr. Beeton claims in his post the following:

A new way of expressing her [Senator Clinton] theme of experience = change. But while the article portrays the speech [Hillary's 9/2/07 NH Speech] as a response to Obama and Edwards, I see it as more of a taunt. Clinton has seen the pattern -- she is attacked and her poll numbers rise; so why wouldn't she want to invite more?

Is that a correct assumption that Hillary's poll numbers have risen as a consequence of Obama fighting back her misleading rhetoric? Polling data suggest that this is an inaccurate statement and a simple observation of Rasmussen Reports weekly democratic primary poll numbers rebuts Mr. Beeton's claims.

Obama and Clinton's war of words campaign kicked into full gear in late July beginning with the following exchange at the CNN/Youtube Debate in Charleston, South Carolina:

CLINTON: . . . I happen to agree that there is no military solution, and the Iraqis refuse to pursue the political solutions. In fact, I asked the Pentagon a simple question: Have you prepared for withdrawing our troops? In response, I got a letter accusing me of being unpatriotic; that I shouldn't be asking questions.

Well, one of the problems is that there are a lot of questions that we're asking but we're not getting answers from the Bush administration.

COOPER: Time.

CLINTON: And it's time for the Republicans to join us in standing up to the president to bring our troops home.

(A little later in the debate)

OBAMA: Our soldiers have done everything that's been asked of them. They deposed Saddam Hussein.

They have carried out extraordinarily difficult missions with great courage and great bravery.

But, you know, one thing I have to say about Senator Clinton's comments a couple of moments ago. I think it's terrific that she's asking for plans from the Pentagon, and I think the Pentagon response was ridiculous. But what I also know is that the time for us to ask how we were going to get out of Iraq was before we went in.

(APPLAUSE)

And that is something that too many of us failed to do. We failed to do it. And I do think that that is something that both Republicans and Democrats have to take responsibility for.

When I am president of the United States, when I send our troops into battle, I am going to be absolutely sure that it is based on sound intelligence, and I'm going to tell the truth to the American people, as well as the families who are being asked to sacrifice.

Part I: CNN/YouTube Democratic presidential debate transcript

That exchange marked a turning point for the Obama campaign because it set in motion a chain of events that has allowed Senator Obama to draw clear lines of contrast between he and Senator Clinton. Most importantly, it allowed Senator Obama to finally begin closing the door on the free pass that the corporate media and some in the netroots blogosphere has provided Hillary Clinton on her past 2002 Iraq War authorization vote. Kathleen Turner of Real Clear Politics said it best in her June 6th editorial 'Bush's War' Is Clinton's Rewrite:

Hillary Clinton's remark during Sunday night's Democratic presidential debate that Iraq is "George Bush's war" may be interpreted as either brilliant strategy or desperate deflection.

. . . "The differences among us are minor. The differences between us and the Republicans are major," she said.

. . . The 90-page NIE report was made available to all 100 senators 10 days before the Senate vote.

If she had read the whole report, could Clinton have voted as she did? If she didn't read it, can she now claim that she was misled? Van Natta and Gerth quoted Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.V., then the vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, as saying that only six (unnamed) senators had read the complete report.

Whatever Clinton thinks she thought, her vote and words do not accurately reflect what she now insists she meant.

Obama was now shutting down the notion that Senator Clinton had no culpability in the worst foreign policy decision in U.S. history. Obama's actions infuriated Senator Clinton and thus lead to her erroneous "Bush-Cheney lite" foreign diplomacy comments in an attempt to hit back at Obama.

CLINTON: Well, I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year.

. . . we're not going to just have our president meet with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and, you know, the president of North Korea, Iran and Syria until we know better what the way forward would be.

The corporate media and Senator Clinton went on a tyrade to paint Barack Obama as "inexperienced" and "naive" and completely ignored Clinton falling on her own sword on August 2nd regarding the use of nuclear weapons (see included youtube). This lead to Hillary's rise after the CNN/Youtube debates on July 23. Rasmussen Reports showed that from 7/23 to 8/06, Hillary Clinton went from a stagnating 38% to an astounding 44% and most pundits concluded as a result that she was headed to the inevitable 50% territory.

Hillary Clinton's unstoppable rise in the polls came to a screeching halt after Obama's superior performance at the AFL-CIO presidential forum on August 7th in Chicago, Illinois. During this debate he put the brakes on the corporate media's false narratives, Hillary Clinton's Washington insider friendly foreign policy, and the Clinton/Dodd senior Senatorial experience mythology.

OBAMA: Well, look, I find it amusing that those who helped to
authorize and engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our
generation are now criticizing me...
(APPLAUSE)
... for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not
the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism.
(APPLAUSE)
Chris, respectfully -- and you and I are close friends -- but the
fact is: You obviously didn't read my speech. Because what I said
was that we have to refocus, get out of Iraq, make certain that we are
helping Pakistan deal with the problem of Al Qaida in the hills
between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

OBAMA: But, Chris, if we have actionable intelligence on Al
Qaida operatives, including bin Laden, and President Musharraf cannot
act, then we should. Now, I think that's just common sense.

. . . But the fact of the matter is that when we don't talk to the
American people -- we're debating the most important foreign policy
issues that we face, and the American people have the right to know.
It is not just Washington insiders that are part...

AFL-CIO Forum Transcript

That direct confrontation between Obama and Clinton resulted in Clinton's poll numbers diving from an all time Rasmussen high of 44% during the week of 8/06 to a more normal 40% during the following week of 8/13.

Obama continued to aggressively draw these contrasts on the campaign trail and that lead to his best debate performance to date during the last DNC sanctioned primary debate hosted by ABCNews in Iowa on August 19th. He defended himself against the three headed juggernaut of Clinton, Dodd and Biden's insistence that senior Senate experience is the key to an effective presidency.

. . . earlier on we were talking about the issue of experience. Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war.

(APPLAUSE)

And it indicates how we get into trouble when we engage in the sort of conventional thinking that has become the habit in Washington.

- Barack Obama at the 8/19 Iowa Debate

This direct confrontation between Obama and Clinton again lead to another dip in poll numbers for Senator Clinton. After the 8/19 primary debate, Clinton's Rasmussen numbers went from 41% on 8/20 to 39% on 8/27. So Tod Beeton is clearly wrong in suggesting that Obama should not contrast himself with Senator Clinton on the campaign trail.

One final point I would make is that events to date clearly contradict Mr. Beeton's other claim that Clinton is driving the debate. Obama took the lead on negotiating with our adversaries and forced Senator Clinton to clarify her stance on diplomacy. Obama defined Washington experience as repeating the same mistakes that lead us to war in 2003 and Senator Clinton has reacted with her recent "experience + change" meme that Mr. Beeton gave the Clinton campaign high praise for. I will also note that Senator Clinton debuted this new platform after Governor Richardson first introduce the notion as representative of himself during the 8/19 democratic primary debate where he said, "I think Senator Obama does represent change and Senator Clinton has the experience. With me you get both. [Applause]"

So I would argue that Senator Clinton is not driving the car at all. She is just a passenger and the license plate on the car she is in is registered to a resident in Illinois name Barack Obama.

Cool Videos

Obama Smackdown Series: ABC News Iowa Debate 8/19/07: The experience old way of doing things establishment candidates, Biden, Clinton and Dodd tried to gang up on Obama about his length of time in the senate. Obama fought back hard against their nonsense.

Hardball Ad 2 - Obama the counter puncher: This one of the major reasons Obama needs to get the democratic nomination because he excels at thinking on his feet. If you try to hit him he will hit you back twice as hard.

Obama and Gore: Leaders to deal with Global Warming: A tribute to two leaders who are significantly changing the political landscape.

What Obama is About: A summary of his policies